Quantitative Research

The quantitative component employed standardized measures in a cross-sectional, correlational design to assess the mental health problems of street-involved youth in downtown Toronto. The preliminary results indicated that these youth have profoundly high levels of mental health symptoms, such as depression, hopelessness, and anxiety in comparison to healthy young adults. The majority of youth indicated that they have experienced some form of abuse, with the majority also having some substance abuse issues. These young adults have considerably lower quality of life scores compared to Ontario high school students. Despite these exceedingly high levels of mental health symptoms and emotional distress, our participants had moderately high levels of self-esteem and resilience. Also, our findings indicated that increased resilience and self-esteem are significantly associated with decreased depression, hopelessness and a range of mental health symptoms, indicating that providing opportunities to build on strengths offers potential to improve mental health symptoms and overall quality of life.